


Denial and Identity

by NoAffiliation



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: He deserves happiness, LeFou deserves better and I'm here to try, M/M, Unrequited Love, and a name, finding yourself, this got out of hand quickly, welcome to my rambling character studies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-31
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-10-13 10:50:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoAffiliation/pseuds/NoAffiliation
Summary: He keeps his real name close to his chest, by the boy he used to be before the war, and learns to hide the flinch when the meaning of LeFou strikes a little too close to home.Or the one where LeFou deserves better, but he needs to realize it first.





	

His name, obviously, isn’t LeFou. _Obviously_ . He realizes later that no one _asks_ what it is, no one _remembers_ after he and Gaston return from the war.

“LeFou,” Gaston says, noble and confident, “let’s go.”

He keeps his real name close to his chest, by the boy he used to be before the war, and learns to hide the flinch when the meaning of LeFou strikes a little too close to home.

 

***

 

LeFou thinks Gaston misses the war the same way he craves it; fiercely and without any real acknowledgement. To acknowledge it would be to face how the need was born all those years ago and, for all his prowess in battle, Gaston’s never been good at battling his demons.

Back when they’d _both_ been boys (four dozen eggs, his _ass_ ), he’d find Gaston tucked in the corners of the town, taking up as much space as the shed, the clearing, the shadow of the church held. Gaston always chose containers that were too small so he could pretend to control his surrounding, flood them with bravado and strength, and he’d laugh just loud enough that his parents couldn’t hear him.

“Come on in,” Gaston would say, scrawny arms held akimbo, chest puffed with pride in front of the tiny tree fort. “Let me show you my kingdom.”

And LeFou who _could_ take up space but _didn’t_ scrambled after him. It said something that Gaston would let _him_ in, would show him the little parts that felt safe away from the screams and violence in his home. Later they’ll be on a battlefield together, Gaston facing childhood terrors manifested in blood and steel, and LeFou will be at his heel, his own arms bared and pride in his heart.

Now, LeFou thinks that’s when it started. When the warmth in his heart turned from friendship to love, when his feet began to follow, when his hands began to nurture as much as the other man would allow. It began in that tree fort, in the place that Gaston carved out and took over, in the warmth of the bigger boy’s presence.

Coincidentally, that’s when he was given the name _LeFou_. That’s how foreshadowing goes--it’s clearer in hindsight.

 

***

 

LeFou’s a softer breed of soldier, but that doesn’t mean he’s a weak one. He does his part in camp, scrubs and pitches and cooks like any good man and does the bits that Gaston misses because the other man has _big things_ ahead.

( _Gaston_ is big, _huge_ , and strong and brave and _right_ . He’s the sort of man that lets them _start_ wars, the sort of man that grins into cannon fire, the sort of man who _wins_ battles. But this isn’t a story about Gaston.)

LeFou smiles too much, laughs and nudges when the fire is burning too low to warm them, and parts easily with his rations so long as they go to the Captain (big things, remember?). He’s a foot soldier and a terrible one, too uncoordinated to wield anything but a spear properly, but he’s the first to step forward when it’s time to face the enemy. The first to pick up arms, the first to step up _beside_ the Captain instead of _behind_ him, the first to roll up his sleeves and tend the wounded after it’s done. Then he’ll turn around and help cook dinner, pitch tents, scrub blood from dented steel.

Gaston is a typhoon, a forest fire, but LeFou is as consistent and unrelenting as the tides. He makes dedication look _easy_ and, in turn, it’s easy for the other soldiers to mimic it, to listen to their Captain with something that approaches devotion, to follow where Gaston leads.

(To follow the _fool_ , eyes on his back with something a little more warm, a little more _real_ , though it goes unnoticed. LeFou, in his dedication, is often blind. That’s what makes him _LeFou.)_

 

***

 

It’s...hard after the war. After open fields of enemies and cracked open skies, _nowhere_ is big enough for Gaston. He’s brash and bold in the army, but at home he’s _boorish_ and _arrogant_. The only thing that protects him is his hero status, his looks, his past with the army and the small estate his parents left him when they passed.

LeFou knows that his war isn’t over, will _never_ be over because he’s fallen in love with a man too stupid to feel pain. (Denial, as it turns out, is a funny thing. It keeps Gaston from seeing the _real_ enemy, the monsters that whisper violence into his ear. It keeps him all those things that LeFou loves, _bold_ and _brash_ and _brave._ It’s also the thin, _thin_ line between Gaston and a broken soldier.)  Any moment could be the moment that the war finally _takes_ Gaston away from him and it’s up to him to stop it.

So he plays the part of the jester, never lets anyone forget that Gaston is _good_ and _important._ He cleans up Gaston’s messes, slides coins into palms for discretion, and pretends that he’s just as witless as his name suggests.

And if Gaston never really _looks_ at him, never thanks him, never treats him like LeFou’s soul is crying out for, it’s fine. Because Gaston is still at war and a Captain never looks back. Only forward.

Then Gaston sees Belle.

 

***

 

“I’m going to marry Belle,” Gaston tells LeFou. It’s a statement of fact, like always, and he smiles his victor’s smile. “She’s the only one in town as beautiful as me.”

LeFou barely remembers the rest of the conversation, doesn’t know what he said, doesn’t know what he was thinking. Actually, he knows what he was thinking.

_No_ . _Please, no, I--I can’t do this._

But Gaston’s vision for his future involves a wife (not a husband) and it’s so _good_ to hear that Gaston is thinking of a future these days. There’s no way he can stop him, no way to go beyond half-hearted protests, no way to say “What about me?”

(He also thinks that Gaston is _insane_ if he thinks that Belle is a small enough space for him to conquer. There are women, _good_ women, who see the hero in Gaston like LeFou does, who’d protect him in ways that he needs to be protected. LeFou doesn’t know Belle, but he knows that this--this is a mistake.)

But this is what Gaston wants, as it turns out, and LeFou has made getting Gaston what he wants an _art_.

(It’s less...messy if LeFou sets it up. Less likely to turn people against Gaston, less likely to end with Gaston realizing that he’s too _big_ , less likely to end with LeFou burning right alongside him.)

 

(LeFou and denial are old, _old_ friends.)

 

***

 

LeFou doesn’t(does) believe Maurice. The old man has finally cracked (Where is Belle?) and he’s telling tall tales (Belle would never leave her father.) There’s something dark in Gaston these days, looking for a fight (looking to _hurt_ ). LeFou tries to soothe the wound (the beast), ashamed that he hadn’t been able to protect Gaston from Belle’s rejection.

(Soon he’ll wonder at just _who_ he should have been protecting.)

“Show us to the Beast,” Gaston says to Maurice, snake charm underneath the heroic cut of his jaw. “We’ll save her.”

LeFou, as always, follows.

 

***

 

“We aren’t just going to leave him there,” LeFou says. He’s trembling so bad that it comes out like a question, eyes wide and pleading as he looks up at the man he loves. “H-he’s a civilian, Gaston. We aren’t just going to leave him there.”

Gaston is calm now, not the seething ball of anger ( _fury_ ) that he’d been at the supposed entrance to the castle.

(LeFou has a lot of reasons for that, a lot of explanations. Life in the town is dull, Gaston’s been pent up, it was the words that Maurice had said,  LeFou hasn’t done a good enough job keeping him happy, LeFou hasn’t tried hard enough, LeFou should have stopped his fist, LeFou saw it coming and did nothing.)

 

( _That’s a lot of excuses_ , his mind whispers.)

 

“The wolves will take care of him,” Gaston says and climbs back onto the cart. “Let’s go.”

Gaston is already facing forward, eyes locked on the road ahead. LeFou knows from experience that Gaston doesn’t look _back_. If Gaston leaves without LeFou, then LeFou will lose him.

Lefou, as always, follows.

(He’s beginning to feel the edges of his own denial, like peeling paint. Underneath there’s something _dark_ and _wounded_ , his own souvenir from the war.)

 

***

 

LeFou remembers the face of every man that he killed in the war. The ones whose faces he didn’t see, he imagines one for them. Sometimes he sees these ghosts superimposed over the faces of his neighbors, mouths gaping and _hungry_.

Then Gaston will throw a knife into a wall and he’s back in the present, back where Gaston is holding back the tide of war just for him.

Something in his gut is telling him that he was _wrong_. Gaston isn’t holding back the war (and certainly not just for him). Nor is he starting one.

Gaston smiles as they leave an old man (a _father_ ) tied to a tree and LeFou thinks that the war might be wearing a human skin.

But then the sea of self-hatred ( _he left Maurice there, he didn’t stop Gaston)_ rises above his eyes and he pushes the thought away entirely.

 

***

 

_We left him_ , _we left him, we left him, we left him…_

The chant continues on and on and on in LeFou’s head on the way back, into the night, into the next day. Sometimes he thinks, _I left him_.

Sometimes he thinks, _Gaston left him_.

Contrary to popular belief, LeFou’s whole sense of self doesn’t revolve around Gaston. He was someone _before_ (a little boy with a name no one _remembers_ ) and he’s still _someone_ . Maybe they don’t see him in the long and dark shadow Gaston leaves behind, but he’s _there_.

He joined the war because he’s a different breed of soldier, but he’s still a _soldier_. He wants to protect, he wants to serve, he wants to make sure that his friends and neighbors can continue drinking in a pub away from the oceans of blood the mad king left behind.

So _why_ did he leave someone he went to war to protect behind?

(He could ask why Gaston did, but this isn’t a story about _Gaston_.)

(He knows why, but won’t touch it. Not yet.)

_I must protect Gaston_ , LeFou thinks when the chanting grows too loud. _I must._

He holds tight to the conviction with what strength he can muster when he starts seeing _Maurice’s_ face amongst those he killed.

 

***

 

Then Maurice _isn’t_ dead, he’s sitting in the tavern and drinking and it’s the first miracle that LeFou has seen since coming back from the war with bloody hands. He can’t stop his grin or the way that his relief sings in the air around him.

That’s probably why it takes him so long to catch on to what Gaston is _saying_.

“Let’s hear from LeFou,” Maurice sputters, unable to defend himself against a man so _big_. “He was there.”

“Yeah,” Mr. Potts says. “Is he telling the truth? Did you really leave him there?”

It’s probably the first time in his life that someone wants to hear from _LeFou_.

“Alright,” Gaston says easily. He turns and _smiles_ at LeFou, wraps a strong arm around his shoulders, _looks_ at him. “My oldest _friend_ , tell them.”

Three things become very, _horribly_ clear in that moment.

One is that Gaston _knows_ . It’s not a surprise, of course he knows about LeFou’s feelings, but LeFou never expected him to notice them enough to use them _against_ him. It makes something sick bloom in his stomach and a little voice asks whether or not this is the first time.

Second is that LeFou (and he means _the fool_ now) made this possible. Without him, the townspeople would _know_ Gaston, they’d never believe him over Maurice, a man who mends and fixes and _gives back_ to the community. He is Gaston’s credibility (has been since they enlisted, since they picked up arms, since they _killed_ ) and it’s all come back to bite him.

Third is that LeFou won’t survive what happens next. Because he _can’t_ lose Gaston, but the person he is (the person he thought he was) would never lie.

There was always going to be a casualty, LeFou realizes. He’d just neglected to think about how a one man war only has one life to give.

“We didn’t leave him there,” LeFou says. “He ran off. We looked. We didn’t find him.”

The self-hatred rises and rises and rises until LeFou drowns.

 

***

 

(That’s two identities taken from him. The boy he used to be and the fool besotted with Gaston. He’s someone different now, but he doesn’t know _who_. There’s so much that he’s never touched on, thought about, he doesn’t know enough.

He reaches for his denial and begins to _rip_.)

**Author's Note:**

> A little rambling, but I'm here for LeFou, okay? This won't end with Gaston and LeFou, just a heads up for any shippers out there.


End file.
